Friday, November 02, 2012

A Newsweek low point

In 2006 Newsweek magazine ran an issue with the front cover headline "Is your baby racist?"

The cover story was an argument in favour of the left-liberal, rather than the right-liberal, attitude to race/ethnicity.

Right-liberals believe that you can make race not matter by being blind to it (colour blind). But left-liberals think that if you don't see race it will continue to matter, i.e. there will still be racial disparities. Therefore, left-liberals want people to see race and to intervene to treat the races differently.

There are left-liberals who think that whiteness was constructed to create an unearned privilege and to oppress the non-white other. Therefore, they believe that white societies must be deconstructed and that an assertion of white identity is a defence of "supremacy". Non-white identities, on the other hand, are regarded more positively as means of resistance to injustice or as expressions of culture.

And so the Newsweek article opened with an account of an experiment in which white parents showed their children multicultural books or videos. All of the parents supported multiculturalism, but some of them dropped out of the experiment when they realised they would have to point out the existence of race to their children:
At this point, something interesting happened. Five families in the last group abruptly quit the study. Two directly told Vittrup, "We don't want to have these conversations with our child. We don't want to point out skin color."

These were presumably the right-liberal parents who believe that race can and should be made not to matter by being blind to it.

The Newsweek writers, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, hold these parents to be wrong on the basis of research showing that very young children if left to their own devices won't become race blind but are likely to notice race and to identify with their own race. Furthermore, putting children in diverse environments is only likely to raise this awareness of race.

And so what the Newsweek writers wants parents to do is to speak openly about race to their very young children (the critical period being from 6 months to first grade).

But this is where the story gets particularly nasty. The racial message that Newsweek wants white infants to get is not a neutral one; the idea is to demoralise young white children through guilt:
Bigler ran a study in which children read brief biographies of famous African-Americans. For instance, in a biography of Jackie Robinson, they read that he was the first African-American in the major leagues. But only half read about how he'd previously been relegated to the Negro Leagues, and how he suffered taunts from white fans. Those facts—in five brief sentences were omitted in the version given to the other children.

After the two-week history class, the children were surveyed on their racial attitudes. White children who got the full story about historical discrimination had significantly better attitudes toward blacks than those who got the neutered version. Explicitness works. "It also made them feel some guilt," Bigler adds. "It knocked down their glorified view of white people."

And what about non-white children? Instead of guilt, the emphasis is on instilling in them a sense of ethnic pride:
Preparation for bias is not, however, the only way minorities talk to their children about race. The other broad category of conversation, in Harris-Britt's analysis, is ethnic pride. From a very young age, minority children are coached to be proud of their ethnic history. She found that this was exceedingly good for children's self-confidence; in one study, black children who'd heard messages of ethnic pride were more engaged in school and more likely to attribute their success to their effort and ability.

So Newsweek wants white children to be knocked down in their sense of identity, but non-white children to be raised up. How could that possibly be justified? The Newsweek writers have a go at it with this argument:
That leads to the question that everyone wonders but rarely dares to ask. If "black pride" is good for African-American children, where does that leave white children? It's horrifying to imagine kids being "proud to be white." Yet many scholars argue that's exactly what children's brains are already computing. Just as minority children are aware that they belong to an ethnic group with less status and wealth, most white children naturally decipher that they belong to the race that has more power, wealth, and control in society; this provides security, if not confidence. So a pride message would not just be abhorrent—it'd be redundant.

The Newsweek writers assume that their mostly white readers will agree that "It's horrifying to imagine kids being 'proud to be white'". Horrifying? Really?

If a positive identity is "exceedingly good for children's self-confidence" then why should white children miss out? According to Newsweek it's because white children belong to "the race that has more power, wealth and control in society" and therefore white children have security and confidence and ethnic pride is "redundant".

That's wrong for several reasons. First, the race that does disproportionately well in the U.S. are Asians; they do best per capita in education, in professional employment and in family stability. Whites come next and then blacks. But when it comes to self-confidence, studies show that blacks have the highest level of self-esteem, then whites, and Asians come last. So you don't get self-confidence by belonging to a race which does well educationally or professionally.

And, anyway, the value of identity is not limited to its effect on self-confidence. It is a good that is basic to human life. We don't, for instance, say "it's horrifying to imagine white people marrying and having children because that is good for their self-esteem and they already have too much of that compared to others". Instead, we hope that white people, just like others, will get to enjoy the love and fulfilment that comes with a successful marriage and parenthood, goods that can be realised in life despite differing levels of wealth or status.

And it's much the same when it comes to identity. Whether we are wealthy or not, self-confident or not, does not make identity "redundant". It remains significant in our lives regardless.

White parents should neither be denying race nor attempting to instil racial guilt in their children. To do either is to neglect one part of a parent's loving care for a child. White children, just like any others, should be raised to positively identify with their own ancestry and tradition. If this increases their self-confidence in life, that should be welcomed; it is unjust to think that a child should be deliberately deprived of either identity or self-confidence in order to further a plan of racial levelling.

15 comments:

  1. The key phrase for me appears in the passage describing the children who read the longer version of the Jackie Robinson story. It says that they had a "better attitude toward blacks." The word "better" has a double meaning here: (a) more favorable, and (b) more advantageous. If we look at the second meaning, we have to ask "better/advantageous for what, or whom?"

    Obviously the writers are primarily concerned with the second meaning, since whites who have a less favorable attitude towards whites have the "better" attitude (sense b). So I think we have to say the word "better" must be read in sense (b) in this Newsweek article. It always means "better for," and only sometimes means "more favorable."

    If Newsweek had been a reputable magazine instead of a liberal rag, it would have said that accurate racial information is better for everyone. If we stop talking about accuracy, we're only talking about giving one group an advantage over the other.

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  2. For Whites to have a healthy and accurate self-image would be "horrifying" for liberals. To harm the self-image of White children in order to advantage non-Whites is a good thing in the eyes of at least the left-liberals, who are disproportionately represented in fields like education.

    They say they are anti-racist. What they are is anti-White.

    These White children are going to grow up in a world where they will have been handicapped as though they were a powerful majority, but in which they will be a minority, and there will be a powerful anti-White majority that will have it in for them.

    Africa for the Africans, Asia for the Asians, White countries for everyone.

    That means in time: no Whites. That is the only place that chronic non-White mass immigration into all and only White countries can lead, when it is combined with forced integration and assimilation. But that - genocidal - outcome is the long run effect.

    What it mean immediately in America is a historically White country where the White minority kids grow up psychologically crippled - deliberately crippled - to prevent them being able to stand together with self-respect and compete freely against hostile groups as a stigmatized minority must do to survive. Meanwhile, members of the non-White and anti-White coalition will be a majority, and already have the power of the mass media, the academic establishment and the state on their side, yet they are not taught self-restraint at all. They are fed pride and anti-White hostility, and shown by who gets awards that attitudes like "all Whites go to Hell" are commendable.

    A cruel gladiatorial games is being prepared. The designated victims are being psychologically crippled to grow up incapable of collective self-defense, while their designated destroyers are being fed pride, empowerment, strong group identities, and grievances (both real and invented) against the Whites.

    It is moral to fight this, and immoral to go along with it.

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  3. Recently Mark Richardson gave good advice on masculinity, in Don't be that guy 2.

    Essentially, White children, who in America soon (and all White countries eventually under mass immigration) will be minority Whites, are being mis-educated to "be that guy" in relation to non-Whites.

    There could not be a worse mental preparation for the environment in which they will live.

    It just came home to me what a horrible, vicious, squalid, hypocritical, child-abusing and incompetent place minority-White America is going to be, compared to what 90% White America was.

    The mass media won't say that, because it's anti-White and will push for the opposite view to damn Whites by damning the White past. Academia has the same anti-White bias and will continue to promote a similar false narrative, as will all states with anti-White political elites.

    But eventually America will slide over a tipping point, and the difference is going to be brutally obvious to the people and the parts of the world that aren't under the domination of the anti-White mass media.

    White boys who were too heavily indoctrinated in their youth to "be that guy" aren't going to be able to react to that, because the natural reaction to danger of a creature to timid to fight is flight - but anti-White states make it their business to prevent the existence of any place Whites can flee to that non-Whites and anti-Whites can't follow.

    So the helpless White "that guy" population will be as effectively trapped as East Germans were behind the Berlin Wall, because the government prevents the existence of any place to flee to.

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  4. Goodbye Newsweek, and good riddance.

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  5. Race relations are so poisoned in the United States. Idiots can say anything about Whites and get a pass. What wretched cheap perverts.



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  6. I agree with Daybreaker's observation that the ideas of left-liberalism are not only wrong, they are also something which it is an active moral good to fight against.

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  7. "I agree with Daybreaker's observation that the ideas of left-liberalism are not only wrong, they are also something which it is an active moral good to fight against."

    This is the thing. The "anti-racist" mass media, academic and political establishment identifies "evil" with the right, and gives the halo of "idealism" to the left.

    They are undeserving of it.

    We are right, and we should take comfort and courage from that. They are anti-White (not "anti-racist"), they are genocidal, and they should not only stop but they should be ashamed.

    While I wouldn't endorse the language, oscar the grinch, a commenter at Unamusement Park, nailed it:

    49 oscar the grinch

    “what they want is a quite deliberate double standard where blacks are allowed the racial consciousness whites are denied”

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Stop complaining about a double standard, and see the truth.

    For the left, there is no “double standard”; there is a single standard, universally applied, and it is this:

    Fuck you, whitey. No matter what the facts are, no matter what the circumstances are, just fuck you, whitey. Die, white man.

    That is the core of their belief. They are not your loyal opposition, with whom you can argue in good faith. They are your deadly ENEMIES, who want you exterminated from the face of the earth. And they don’t care about any abstract principles, their only true principle is to exterminate YOU. They are more than happy to pretend that there are outside standards or principles of fair play, because so long as you believe that, then they have the advantage.

    Remember: whenever a leftist/liberal/anti-racist opens his mouth, all he is really saying is: Die, white man. Fuck off and DIE.

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  8. And what, apart from swearing a lot, does Daybreaker actually plan to do in order to stop this alleged anti-White genocide? I hear endless complaints from him, but nothing remotely resembling a political program for action.

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  9. Arthur R: "And what, apart from swearing a lot, does Daybreaker actually plan to do in order to stop this alleged anti-White genocide? I hear endless complaints from him, but nothing remotely resembling a political program for action."

    Talk, spread the right ideas, encourage others to do the same.

    If you look at how the anti-Whites achieved power and did so much harm, a lot of it was informal.

    Let's look at Newsweek. A fantasy "political program of action" would include something like "found a militant magazine, and make it a great success". That's not what the successful anti-Whites did. Newsweek was founded as a non-leftist publication, and built up its readership and credibility that way. Leftists took over, bent it in their direction, and ran it into the ground, sacrificing long term viability for maximum propaganda intensity.

    That doesn't bother the anti-Whites, because they are "gambling with the house's money".

    If you look at key anti-White organizations and sources of funding, such as the Ford Foundation, many weren't created by hard-working leftists to openly achieve leftist goals, and they certainly weren't founded with an explicit goal to genocide Whites, which is where they policies they promote point to; they were built by moderates for moderate goals or even by rightists like Henry Ford for their goals, but leftists and ultimately anti-Whites took them over and used them to achieve the opposite of what they were supposed to achieve.

    That shows two things: the right's open-minded lack of hostility to the left (and its complete lack of suspicion about such a thing as an anti-White agenda) was fatal; when they opened the doors for "all talents" to rush in, it was the left and the anti-Whites that rushed in, took over, drove the right out, and started pursuing an ultimately genocidal agenda. And the conversations that mattered were not the ones that took place officially in the warm light of day but the ones in which the anti-Whites agreed that certain things had to be done, that the right was not legitimate but an enemy to be driven out of power, and that they, the anti-Whites, were going to take over various organizations (all the while swearing blind that they were not doing that).

    "Just talking" is important. And "building stuff" without doing all the needed talk is futile - that's what the right used to do, and that is why it is systematically persecuted by institutions that it built, but that the left and ultimately anti-Whites took over.

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  10. Naming the enemy to be displaced from power, and making it clear they are enemies and not a "loyal opposition" is important. (And this is something that has to be gotten right; for example if you define "Jews" as "the enemy" such that non-Jewish Whites get a pass no matter how hostile they are to White interests: fail! The enemy is anti-Whites; I don't care if they are White, Black or purple.)

    Discussing the right direction for society is important, if only because the price of any great change is a rational proposal for something better. This is why I like Mark Richardson on the ideal of a balanced life pursuing a bundle of reasonably compatible goods rather than one big good ("autonomy" to the destruction of all competing goods.)

    Talking about why its necessary to act is important. (Because White genocide makes other goals irrelevant for Whites - any other set of aims has to include "and stop White genocide" or it is moot.) Talking about the morality of our cause and the immorality of the anti-White cause isn't merely good, it's indispensable.

    Making up grandiose "action plans" as though we were the ones with the money and as though the anti-Whites were out of power instead of being the establishment is unnecessary.

    As for fantasy constitutions - who cares? The ones we already have are good, if they were respected.

    If people will just focus on clear necessities like stopping chronic mass non-White immigration into all and only White countries (which would have been accepted as pure common sense by the founders of America, Australia etc.), that is enough. When enough people agree strongly enough that such goals are moral and the anti-Whites opposing them are immoral and need to be displaced, the job will get done.

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  11. If "not complaining" was the master key to political success, leftist and anti-Whites would have achieved nothing.

    For that matter, though I rarely swear, if "not swearing" was the master key to political success, leftist and anti-Whites would have achieved nothing again.

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  12. And now, what is "this alleged anti-White genocide?" Do you have a rational, credible explanation of how mass non-White immigration into White countries, plus forced integration, assimilation and ultimately, inevitably intermarriage can work out, other than with no White people left?

    If you pour a hundred thousand Asians a year into an Indian reservation, and force the Indians to integrate, assimilate and inevitably intermarry with them, how does that end other than with the death of the tribe?

    Suppose you pour a million Africans a year into Germany, and require the Germans to integrate, assimilate and inevitably intermarry with them, how can that end other than with the end of the White German people?

    For that matter, if you poured a million Africans a year into Japan, and forced the Japanese to integrate and assimilate, how could that end but with the death of the Japanese race?

    "Genocide involves the attempt to achieve the disappearance of a group by whatever means. It does not have to be violent, it could be a combination of policies that would lead to a certain group dying out."

    Malcolm Fraser (Prime Minister of Australia 1975-1983)

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  13. As a teacher in training in NSW, I can tell you that we are encouraged to formulate units of study that appeal to the ethnic pride of minority ethnic groups. For example, for a world history class with a large percentage of Pacific Islanders it has been suggested that we formulate lessons based on the migration of Polynesians in order to heighten their interest in the work.

    I will admit that the decade-old Year 9-10 Australian History syllabus does well to cover Australia's achievements from Federation through the Wars up to about the 1970s, after which it becomes a study of left-wing social movements.

    White guilt and glorification of diversity is mostly the realm of the English faculty, through texts on Aboriginals (white racism), the Holocaust (white racism), the antebellum South (white racism) and refugee/immigrant experiences (white racism).

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  14. It's funny Paul I'm 25 and I cannot recall ever being taught any Australian history. I went to public schools.
    One of the great mysteries of my awful Australian education

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